


Queen Of Broken Hearts

by SooperWeeb



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fandom, Fanfiction, Fluff, Marriage, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SooperWeeb/pseuds/SooperWeeb
Summary: Before Five, Tori was a notorious assassin working for The Commission. She was the only survivor of the training program that was shut down for being 'unethical' and 'inhumane,' making her a deadly asset. And her powers are a plus. But upon meeting Five, they became a frightening duo.Now Five has made them both wanted criminals and Tori has no idea where he's at. But when she finds him, they're definitely getting a divorce. She's still debating on killing him.
Relationships: Number Five/OC, five hargreeves/Tori
Comments: 13
Kudos: 134





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Umbrella Academy (TV series or comic, though this will follow the TV series), only Tori and her story. Also, I've changed the physical age of Five to around 17, to make myself and many readers more comfortable. But of course, feel free to imagine the story as you want.

At this point, Tori couldn't remember a time before The Commission. She had been with them for so long, been their lap dog, that she could hardly call herself a person anymore. She did everything they asked, no questions, killed whoever they pointed their finger at. Not everyone was that loyal and they knew it. Not everyone let themselves be bossed around for long.

She supposed the only reason they kept her around because of her abilities, since that was the only reason anyone kept her around. Molecular Manipulation wasn't exactly a trained skill that anyone could learn. So they gave her difficult jobs, ones that others just couldn't seem to get done or just didn't come back from.

This early morning, she sat on the overly-fancy couch in The Handler's office. Her head was pounding, but this wasn't a meeting she could opt out of very easily. A debriefing for a mission that three separate teams had already failed, and apparently the board was getting nervous that it wouldn't get done. So she held her head in her hands, hoping this was quick and painless.

The door creaked open, but Tori knew it wasn't The Handler. No obnoxious heels clicked on the wood floss. Just the soft tapping of a pair of loafers.

"Your coffee, Miss," she looks to see her favorite recruit had finally appeared with her favorite morning beverage.

"Thanks, Herb," she sighs as she reaches her hands out for the large mug that was filled nearly to the top. The short man had just been brought into The Commission a few months ago, and while he was a little soft he was a very kind soul. He gave her a crinkly smile, reaching into the pocket of the gray blazer that every office employee had to wear.

"Can't forget," he says as he pulls out a white bottle of pills, "had some Advil in my desk. You look like you could use it."

She smiles in relief taking the bottle from his hand, "you're a saint," she says as she drops two of the blue pills in her hand.

He grins as she hands the bottle back today, "anytime, Miss. Good luck on the mission today. And with the recruit!"

She almost chokes on the pills as he finishes his goodbye. But by the time she managed to get air back into her lungs, the door had closed behind him and he was already walking down the hall. She coughs a few more times, sipping her coffee as she sits in silence again.

Recruit? Is that why The Handler was giving her this mission personally? She wanted her to train a newbie?

She had more important things to do than deal with an overconfident ass who wouldn't listen to her! And yes, she knew that's what he would be like. All recruits were the same when they showed up. They all thought they were tough shit because some top-secret organization thought they would be useful. Honestly, The Commission recruited anyone with more than two brain cells, and a lot of them never made it past orientation.

Who was so special that she was training them and the people who were paid to do it?

As she was angrily staring at her coffee cup, the door swings open once more. This time, annoying heels followed suit. Finally, she could get this over with. Her brown eyes look up to the two figures that walked in, a permanent glare set on her face.

The Handler walked in like a living barbie, as she did most of the time. Her hair is held in place with multiple bottles of hairspray, her makeup caked on so it wouldn't fade throughout a busy day. She wore a purple dress styled from the '50s, the time that Tori was assuming she was really from, and a matching bag on her hand like she was running to the store.

"Oh good!" she says in her cheerful tone, "you're here already."

No response as Tori looked to the man who had walked in with her. Around her age, 24 or maybe 25. Tan skin and brown hair, an unreadable expression on his face. Cleanly shaven, which was obviously new to him as he kept itching at his face. He was in a gray suit like every other recruit, ironed and tailored to him.

His hands were shoved in his blazer pockets, and from the slight movements of the fabric, she could tell he was messing with something. Like a nervous tick but with no visible nerves.

Tori raises the coffee mug to her lips, silently taking a gulp and never breaking eye contact with the mystery guy in the room. He still stood in the doorway, looking her over like she was him.

The Handler makes her way behind her desk, "I saw Herb leaving," she says while sitting in the velvet office chair, "so I assume he spilled something he wasn't supposed to."

Tori finally breaks the staring contest, looking towards the Handler from the couch across the room. But she doesn't move to sit in the chairs across from her desk. She was comfortable and saw no reason to move. The new guy took a seat in one of the two chairs that were open, tje door clicking behind shut behind him.

"Well, let's get the introductions out of the way," she laughs as she places two folders in front of her that she pulled from god knows where, "Tori, this is Five. The newest Recruit, hand chosen by yours personally. Five, this is Tori . The finest field operative to come from Commission training."

"Oh don't think flattery is getting you anywhere," Tori finally speaks, voice taunting and clearly angry.

The Handler waves her mood off and gives "Five" a buttery smile, "you have to ignore the attitude or she'll drive you mad."

Tori rolls her eyes, leaning back against the leather couch. Her headache was slowly subsiding thanks to Herb, but she felt like this mission was going to give her another one before it was gone. She goes back to staring at the coffee table in front of her, not paying attention at all if The Handler was actually speaking. She never did pay attention, but she always got the job done. Maybe not as cleanly as they requested, but it was done.

She was good at solo missions. Other people tripped her up and usually ended up as collateral damage when they weren't everything The Commission thought they would be. She always ended up having to file an incident report when someone insisted they could handle the missions she was given.

She looked at Five's back, trying not to glare too hard. He seemed skinny, hardly any muscle or fat at all. He probably had no fighting experience before this. Maybe some military training from the 20s but that wouldn't get him farther than a few feet in the door of a Nazi filled camp.

"Ahem," she finally looks at The Handler again, seeing that she was holding out a yellow folder for her to get. Five already had his in hand and was flipping through the pages, paying no mind to her presence behind him.

The folder disintegrates in her grip, a black cloud of fuzzy smoke in its place. The Handler drops her hand and the cloud fades from existence. Five watches with a blank face as it dissolves into nothing, suddenly hearing paper fluttering behind him. He turns, seeing the envelope in Tori's hands in one piece. He says nothing.

"Tori is gifted," says The Handler when she notices his stare over his shoulder. He turns back to look at her, "Molecular Manipulation is what we call it around here--"

"That's what it's called."

"There's really too much that she can do to get in one briefing. But now that you guys are partners, you'll have plenty of time to get to know each other," she said it so easily. Tori thought she must've misheard her. But what else would she be trying to say? She looks up slowly this time from the folder she was skimming over.

"Partners?" She asks in a calm voice.

The annoyingly perfect looking woman nods, "well since you're both gifted we thought this would be a nice duo. A team of superpowered people. I told you last week, dear."

Tori rolls her eyes and rests her chin on her fist, her elbow on her crossed legs, "if you had told me I wouldn't have shown up today."

The Handler snaps her fingers, smiling innocently, "maybe that's why I forgot to mention it!" she chuckles, "but yes. Partners. So anyway as I was saying,"

Tori sighs heavily through her nose and looks back down at the folder, shaking her head to herself about the paperwork she would have to do when this ended.

"So I'm sure you're both familiar with the Zimmerman Message, the telegram that assured America's entrance into World War Two?" No response from either agent. Hell, Five hadn't said a word the entire time he had been in the room. Tori was beginning to wonder if he talked at all, "assuming you both passed history class, I'll keep going. Well, we've had a few...rouge agents lately. The only two in the past millennia of The Commission being in control. Well, they happen to be in possession of one of our briefcases and have an agenda for stopping some of the most important historical events. They're currently trying to stop the Zimmerman Message from getting into the hands of America. I'm sure you can tell where this is going."

"Dead or Alive?" Mutters Tori, looking at the pictures of the two rogues they were looking for. Two girls, but she had never seen either of them.

"Alive if possible," she says as she pulls her longer-than-necessary cigarette holder from a pocket in her dress, "but I have no issues if you deem it necessary to kill them."

She lights a cigarette at the end of the stick in her hand, and it was silent for a moment. Tori simply glanced at the date of when they would be going. March first, 1917.

"Let's get this over with," she says in a monotone voice, dropping her file on the table and standing up.

Tori had strayed from the dress code a long time ago. The pant-suits and skirts weren't for her. She was comfortable in faded jeans and her favorite brown leather steel toe boots. It wasn't lady-like, and the girls in the office made it clear they didn't like non-lady-like women when they reported her for dress code misconduct. As if those in charge cared that their best assassin was walking around in a pink "Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck" t-shirt (her favorite).

Her boots were heavy on the wood floor, but she didn't care. She could be quiet when it counted.

She was out the door before either he or Handler could say anything to her. She was clearly pissed at this new arrangement and made no moves to hide it. Everyone scrambled out of her way as she fumed down the hall towards the Briefcase holding area.

Those two rogues were dead already, she had decided. Necessary or not, she needed to blow off some steam and this was a great way to do it. Halfway down the hall, she can hear the office door opening once more. Maybe she would get lucky and he would get lost trying to follow her.

The sound of puffing air and electricity right beside her shocked her into stopping in her tracks. Blue light flashes and suddenly Five was standing directly beside her when a second ago he had been a whole hallway away.

So this is what "gifted" meant in his case.

She looks at him in shock, looking him up and down to make sure he was fully solid and not some hallucination of hers. It had happened before.

He could teleport? Or he was extremely fast. Either one could make him slightly more useful than any of the other bozos in this place who wanted to go on her missions. She scoffs, returning to her walk down the hall.

"Just don't get in my way," she says.

"As long as you don't get in mine," the first words he had ever spoken to her. Maybe at all, judging by his rough voice from lack of use. She smirks, not sparing him a look as he follows her around the corner.

"I was starting to think you were a mute."


	2. ONE

Together for 32 years, married for 27 of those. But that didn't come as a surprise to many people around the commission. They had fought like an old married couple for years before actually becoming one.

Truth be told, Tori had never seen herself getting married to anyone, much less Five Hargreeves. She never saw herself making morning pancakes and coffee, she didn't really see herself living past 30. But Five had wormed his annoying self into her heart. He says it was an accident that they fell in love, that it was just a chance that the Handler had sent them on that mission together. But whenever he kissed her, it never felt like an accident.

Tori sits at the kitchen table of their shared house on Commission property, a hot coffee mug in her hand as the sun begins to rise through the window above the sink. It was peaceful, with the shower being the only background noise to her morning reading. And when it stopped, so did she.

She closed the book she had chosen this week, A Time Traveler's Wife to be ironic, and set it on the table to be picked up the next morning. They had grown a routine for their mornings, the only part of either of the days that remained the same. The closest piece of normalcy they would ever get with their lives.

She poured another cup of coffee into one of the coffee cups from the counter. She didn't pay attention to the one she had picked until it was already poured full. The black lettering had faded on the white ceramic, but she knew what one it was. Herb had gifted them a matching set on their wedding day. Mr. and Mrs. coffee mugs that, for some reason, meant an awful lot to her.

She smirks as she moves the mug in front of his chair at the table, thinking about their wedding day. It wasn't a very traditional wedding. In fact, it was in the hallway of the Commission building with some office worker as the officiator. But they decided to do it only three hours before it happened, covered in blood with only enough time to shower afterward before going on another mission. When they got back, Herb had presented them with their first and only wedding gift.

That's probably why these pieces of glass were so important to her. Getting them had made it settle in her head that they were actually married. She would never be alone again.

Her mind drifts farther into the memories of her and Five when the man himself walks in. Gray hair, slightly wrinkled skin, but his eyes were still the same eyes she had loved for years. He was still as handsome as the day they met.

He takes his place at the table as she moves to take her own cup to the sink, "morning, angel," he says, voice rough from the steam of his shower.

She hums, washing the mug that she used, "you're up earlier than usual."

"Can't I spend time with my wife before work?" He teases and she gives him an unbelieving look over her shoulder while rinsing the cup in her hand.

She scoffs and shakes her head in an amused manner, "you're never up before seven unless it's important."

There's a second of silence and she can tell without looking that he was rolling his eyes at her attitude, "I need to get to a briefing at seven," he says, "but I was trying to be romantic."

"Lying isn't romantic," their banter was purely that, banter. But to any outside ears, it would sound like a divorce waiting to happen. Like a love doomed to fail from the start, and maybe 10 years ago she would have agreed with them. But he was still proving her wrong to this day by putting up with her.

She lays her cup in the drying rack on the opposite side of the sink, turning to make her way back to the table to sit with Five until they both had to leave for work. Neither of them liked mornings much, but the silent company of each other made it a little more bearable that the sun was hardly up yet.

"So I was thinking," he begins.

She smirks, "never a good sign, but continue."

"I was going to. I was thinking about the equations last night," he seems to be only half awake still as he thought about a topic that they seemed to rarely bring up.

Five's family, adoptive family he always liked to clarify, died in the 2019 ending. In that timeline at least. He jumped forward in time when he was 13 to spite his father and ended up stuck in an apocalyptic world where he saw his entire family crushed in the remains of their home. He didn't like talking about it, but pillow talk brought them to a lot of places. A long time ago he had told her that he wanted to get back and save them, maybe even save the world. So badly that he had been trying to figure out how to do it without messing up the entire timeline. And that involved a lot of math.

"What about them?" she humors his thoughts like always, crossing her arms on top of the table.

She had clearly aged as well since being together. Her brown hair was silver, she had given up on dyeing it a long time ago, her tattoos faded and she couldn't be bothered to get them redone. Her jeans and t-shirt choice of work clothing hadn't changed, but her boots had been replaced by a pair of black sneakers that were better for her new position.

"You said something was off about them," he recalls the last time they had worked on the numbers together, "did you ever figure out what it was?"

She hadn't looked at them very often. Just when they tried to figure it out together. So she shakes her head, "haven't had a chance to look at them. Why?"

He sips his cup of black coffee, leaning his elbows on the table as he looks at her closely. She couldn't tell what he was thinking with his blank face, just that it was making his mind wander. Whether that was good or bad depended on his mood this morning. He places the cup down.

He opens his mouth for a second before closing it again, eyes traveling to star at the table. Like he would find all the answers carved into the wood.

"Five," she says softly to grab his attention, "what are you thinking about, cariño?" Her hand reaches across the table to place it on top of his. He finally looks back up at her, his eyes soft and confused at whatever internal conflict he was having.

He turns his hand over so their palms are laying against each other, curling his fingers so he could lift her knuckles to his lips. His mustache hairs tickled her skin. She hated that thing, it felt weird when she kissed him. But he refused to get rid of it.

"Nothing important," he tries to assure her with a weak smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. When he saw that she wasn't satisfied with that answer, he kept talking, "just this mission today. It's an important one."

She supposed that could be what was bothering him, even if he didn't often get worked up over a mission. This was his first mission by himself in a while and they had grown used to watching each other's backs. So she doesn't press the matter farther.

"Okay..." she says and pulls her hand back from his grip, "if you say so," a swift glance at the clock gives away that their morning together was drawing to a close, "I have to get going. I'll see you when you get back. Don't forget—"

He gives her an annoyed wave as she stands from the table, "I know I know, date night. Stop nagging."

She huffs as she takes a few steps to the other side of the table and places her hands on his shoulders, "well you've forgotten before."

"Once," he scoffs, "in 27 years. Let it go."

She grabs his face with a hand, wedding ring glinting in the fluorescent kitchen lights, and turns his head towards her to place their lips together. A quick kiss to merely stop his complaining, but still, one that seemed to light her veins on fire.

She pulled away with a smirk and lets go of his face, "don't keep me waiting, cariño."

Her hands leave his shoulders and he watched her from behind as she made her way into the living room. He watched her grab her gun holster from the key rack beside the door and then she left their home.

His uncertain look as he talked about the equations didn't leave her mind as she started on the short walk down the road towards the commission building. She wondered why it was the first thing he thought of this morning. Did he figure something out? Why did he think she would know something about them? She was barely any better at math than he was. Molecular science was more of her field.

There wasn't much time to dwell on his odd behavior. Hopefully, he would tell her if it was something serious. But she had to put her attention into her work.

Tori was still a field operative, a position she didn't ever plan on leaving. But today was an off day for her. She swapped between combat training the new recruits and going on missions with Five. The commission had found that her training methods weeded out the weak links before any accident reports were filled out, plus she enjoyed it.

She had wanted to be a teacher before joining, after all. This was just another method of that.

The training building was separate from the main building, it was more of a giant outdoor gymnasium. Monkey bars 20 feet off the ground with no safety net, balancing beams just as high, a row of dummy's holding mock briefcases and live guns. And underneath it all was a large group of people of varying ages. All with the same nervous look on their faces that she had the day she arrived

She approached them all without so much as a greeting before shouting to get everyone's attention.

"Eyes on me!"

Her confident voice made them all unconsciously follow her instructions. She was a little older, yes, but her heavy footsteps as she stepped on the concrete patio said she wasn't to be messed with. She had a holster wrapped around her denim-covered thigh, a black t-shirt making her presence feel mysterious and daunting. Everyone stood up straight and tried to avoid direct eye contact.

"Don't think that just because it's the first day you won't be kicking your ass here," she says as she runs over her training plans in her mind, "we've got a schedule and anyone who can't keep up will be terminated immediately. Either my way or the commission's way doesn't matter to me."

She stops in front of the group. Her demeanor seemed to even scare the wind into silence. You could hear a fly land on the grass.

She crosses her arms over her chest, feet shoulder-width apart, and she looks at what she's dealing with. The youngest seemed to be maybe 16, and the oldest close to her own age. A big gap but she knew age never determines skill.

She opens her mouth to give her first order when a hand shoots into the air.

A young girl, wide eyes and a shaky stance, seemed shocked by her own level of guts to interrupt Tori.

Said instructor raises a graying eyebrow, "what?"

The girl clears her throat, lowering her hand back down before speaking, "uh miss...ma'am um. A-are you Tori? Queen of Broken Hearts, Tori?"

"They told you who would be training you, right?" Tori asks for clarification, an unimpressed expression on her face.

"Y-yes ma'am."

"Then what kind of question is that?" No response, not even a giggle at the girl's expense from the others. So she continues as if the question was unasked, "the perimeter of the main building is two miles. You have 10 minutes. Anyone not here by then can just walk home."

No one moved a muscle as she finished, afraid she would disintegrate them on the spot. Which wasn't an unjustified fear. She's done it before.

She looks at them all expectantly, "well go!"


	3. TWO

Five’s obvious anxiety from the morning hung in the back of Tori’s head. And despite knowing he could handle himself, she was still worried for her personal pain in the ass. He didn’t often worry about things, and when he did he never wore it so openly on his face.

He tended to keep his emotions to himself until they bubbled over. It had been that way for as long as they had known each other.

Quick approaching footsteps and heavy breathing pulled her eyes from the concrete ground once again.

Tori’s training regime wasn’t meant for the faint of heart, or asthmatics. There was only 9 remaining recruits left now, and she could practically hear them damning her to hell in their thoughts. But if they had known the training techniques the commission had been testing to use on them a few years prior, they would be thanking her. It was one of the only reasons she even took this position. 

Those methods were….unorthodox? No that’s a nice way of putting it.

Cruel sounded right. Vicious, wicked, inhumane. All of those could be used to describe the Beta program they had put her through in her early days of being an assassin. No one deserved it. So in order to shut the program down, she offered to train all of the recruits herself. 

One of the remaining nine stopped a few feet in front of her. A guy seemingly around 30, in the uniform black tank top and pants, his blonde hair stuck to his forehead and neck with sweat. In his hand was a gripped a mock briefcase. Filled with weights to give the impression of holding a real one that every Commission field operative had to have. He dropped it to his feet, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward as if he was going to pass out.

The rest of the recruits followed behind him, all looking just as exhausted as he did. 

She hums in acceptance of their completion of her obstacle course. It wasn’t easy. Run across the top of 20 feet high monkey bars with no safety net while being shot by rubber bullets, keep hold of your 15lb briefcase while swimming in bottomless waters, disarm the bomb strapped to a training dummy with no instructions. Not common tasks, but they completed it without anyone dying.

The guy who had arrived first looks up at her with what she recognized as irritation in his eyes. He was heaving and panting, but lifted himself up straight to look at her eyes.

“Are we done now?” He asks angrily.

Tori smirks, leaning all of her weight on one foot and resting her hands on her hips. 

“We could’ve died!” He snaps, “are we done with this dumb training course yet?!”

She chuckles, shaking her head to herself before waving him off, “you are,” she says casually to him and only him, “you’ve been eliminated.”

“WHAT?!” he shrieks in disbelief, his already red face tinting even darker, “how am I eliminated! I finished first!”

Tori nods down at the briefcase that sat on the ground by his feet, toppled on its side from the weight it carried. His eyes and those of the other recruits followed her motion. Everyone else still had their briefcase in their hands, whether they meant to or not.

“The briefcase,” she answers his question with an apparent tone, “it hasn’t been returned to the briefcase check-in counter in the commission building yet and is, therefore, still in your care. You recklessly threw it to the ground and have neglected to pick it back up still. You’re. Eliminated.”

Silence follows her words as he glares daggers at her. His fists were shaking by his side, furious at being embarrassed in front of a bunch of strangers he clearly wanted to be better than. His jaw was clenched, but she was still giving him a mocking smirk, clearly enjoying the whole ordeal.

“I bet you’ve never trained anyone a day in your life!” The nameless former recruit growls. All eyes move to him, terror for what would surely happen to him growing in all of them, “I bet you’ve never been on the field, or even in a real fight. I don’t think you’re all everyone cracks you up to be. Or maybe you were and now you’re too old to do anymore amazing tricks so they stuck you in training to keep you busy--”

Tori’s smile had yet to waver, even when his voice stopped suddenly. The anger shaking his body ceased, in fact all movement halted in his body. He was frozen, face scrunched in hatred but his eyes telling a completely different story. He didn’t just stop moving--he couldn’t move. And when attention fell back on the teacher, it was clear why.

Her naturally brown eyes were a shockingly bright red. Glowing, in fact. If it was dark out, they would have been a beacon in the night. But, even in the bright noon sunlight, she looked frightening.

“You should learn some respect if you ever want another chance at being a field agent,” Tori says as if she wasn’t breaking a sweat to hold every molecule of his in place. Which, she wasn’t. Freezing molecules was an easy scare tactic on people who had never seen her power in use before, “until then, have fun at your desk job and hope we never see each other again.”

With her eyes still glowing, and the man still frozen in front of her, she turns to look at the remaining eight recruits who resembled deer in semi headlights, “the rest of you,” she says, “bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Head nods all went around before they all turned to hurriedly walk away from her. She sighs through her nose and looks back at the motionless boy. His face was still angry, but the fear in his green eyes told her that he learned his lesson. With an annoyed eye roll, the red fades back to brown and he collapses to his knees by the mock briefcase. Gasping for air.

Freezing organic molecules not only halted all exterior movement of bodies, but also internal movement. Hearts can’t beat, lungs can’t expand or deflate. Blood can’t flow. Technically speaking, he was legally dead for about a minute and a half. So the gasping for air was justified to her.

“Get out of my sight,” she snaps while turning from him, “or I won’t unfreeze you next time.”

He gulps and sputters for air, weakly scrambling to his feet and practically lunging for his briefcase. His strides in the opposite direction of her were unsteady but he clearly didn’t care, not wanting to be near her for any longer than he had to be. Not that she cared a single ounce.

As she hears him stumbling away on the pavement, her eyes now fall on the person who had been standing at the edge of the training grounds for about an hour now. She had figured after the first ten minutes that he wasn’t a by-stander. He had no interest in the arduous training, but rather someone participating in it. Now, she knew it was her because he didn’t go for any of the retreating newbies that survived the first day.

He was in the gray suit that she had grown tired of seeing all the time, and stood like a robot. Hands clasped in front of him, his eyes following her every step as she approached. Muscular and clearly strong, she wondered if he was trying to intimidate her despite having seen what she did on the field.

There’s an anxious thought in the back of her head as she gets closer to him and sees the lack of readable emotion on his face behind the dark sunglasses; did something happen to Five?

But if that were the case, The Handler would be the one standing there with some fake sorry look on her unaging face. Part of her job was to inform any family in the commission that their spouse or sibling or whatever had died on the job. She used to vent to Tori a lot about hating it. So that couldn’t be what was happening.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” says Tori to the mysterious bald man. She walks right past him, not caring if he bothered to follow her, “didn’t enjoy the show?”

He keeps pace with her quick footing just a few steps to the side, “The Handler said to get you once you were done with training for the day,” his voice was so deep it shook the air around him, some of the after-shock hitting the air around Tori and making her raise an eyebrow.

“Did she?” She asks rhetorically without so much as a look towards him, “did she say why?”

“It’s urgent,” he answers her question, probably unintentionally, and she scoffs. Her feet make contact with the sidewalk that lead to the front door of the main building, but she doesn’t stop to let him continue with anything he might have left to say.

“Next time, don’t stare at me for an hour to tell me that,” but his footsteps were already going in the opposite direction of her, away from the big victorian house that held everything important in it.

She had been with the commission for so long that being summoned by anyone didn’t phase her. It never meant the same thing for her that it did for most everyone else. Getting rid of her would cost them too much since she was the only surviving subject from their beta training program. They had put too much time and money into her to just throw her out.

Not that The Handler would deal with that order. Anything involving her meant the board would handle it directly. And even then, even at her age, they couldn’t get away with it. She could vaporize an entire city, something she had done on their orders, so they knew there was no killing her.

As she walked down the marble hall, she couldn’t think of anything she had done in the past week that required being summoned. She hadn’t stolen any time-altering pieces of history this time, and she hadn’t killed a target that was wanted alive. So that left a single, irritating, option. Five Hargreeves.

Sometimes she wondered why she married such a walking time-bomb. He probably killed the president himself because he was too impatient to wait for the real killer.

She approached the Handler’s office, a few of the workers giving her excited waves and friendly smiles. She didn’t recognize a single person who gave her a small “hello” before scurrying past. Without bothering to knock, she pushed open the solid oak door.

The Handler’s office location hadn’t changed in about 40 years, and the interior hadn’t either. It still had the ugly brown couch with the beaded decorative pillows, the fireplace that had never been lit for as long as Tori had seen it, the desk from the 1800’s (literally) and the dying flowers in a vase in the corner. Five and her liked to joke that The Handler sucked the life out of anything in her office, keeping her young forever. Sometimes Tori wondered if it was actually true.

The devil herself sat behind her desk, sipping from a cip the size of a mouse full of tea that smelled like old gym socks. She was in an obnoxiously loud dress with poofy sleeves and a black hat with a useless veil over her forehead.

“Tori!” she says in what was probably supposed to sound like happiness at her arrival, “how nice to see you again, dear!”

The small cup clicks against its matching plate that sat on the desk as well, and the handler motions to the seats across from her without another word. The same one she had declined upon meeting Five for the first time. The exact same one, if that gave away how old the things were.

But this time, she slid into one of them. She didn’t relax upon sitting down, in fact she seemed to grow even more tense as the velvet cushion touched her back through the black shirt.

“I can’t say the same, “ says Tori and crosses her legs to try and feel more at ease. It didn’t work, but she figured after a second that maybe it would.

Ignoring her comment, Handler gives a small cough to clear her throat. She folds her pale hands in front of the tea cup as if Tori had motivation to steal it. But the smell it gave off almost drove her from the room.

“Would you like some tea?” She asks to try and lighten the heavy atmosphere that Tori had brought in, “or coffee? I know you’re more of a coffee person.”

“I’m fine,” Tori answers curtly and lays her arms over her crossed knees, “I have things to do so let’s cut to the chase.”

Handler flashes a devious smile. The one she always got when Tori was about to want to her apart her molecules. Like she knew every dirty secret that the younger girl had ever had. And to be fair, she probably did, Tori just didn’t give a shit.

“That’s right,” she says as if remembering something important, “you were with the new recruits today. Tell me. How long were you with them?”

The brazilian girl raises a graying eyebrow, “what kind of question is that?”

“A simple one, really. How long did training last today?”

There was really no point in fighting it. Besides, there was nothing to hide. She moved her arms to cross them over her chest, “six am to noon,” she clarifies, “and if you don’t believe me, ask your flying monkey. He watched me.

“Oh yes, Hotch,” Handler picks up her tea, “he’s new. I quite like him,” she takes an annoyingly loud sip before continuing with whatever she was called for, “when was the last time you talked to that unruly boyfriend--husband, sorry. I always forget you two are married now. But when was the last time you spoke to him?”

They had been married for almost 30 years. How did she forget that they were married? She was at the make-shift wedding. 

Pushing that annoying thought aside, she focuses more on the odd question. So this meeting was about Five. How badly could he fuck up one mission without her? It was a few hours long, what could he possibly mess up in a few hours? 

Who needed kids when your husband practically was one?

“Breakfast at 5:30,” Tori elaborates, “what’s this about?”

“I hate being the one to tell you this,” something told Tori that it was the exact opposite, “but during Five’s mission today, just an hour ago it seems, he broke his contract with The Commission. He...disappeared.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, and Tori only stared at the woman while she processed them. She lifts her chin, eyes grazing the popcorn ceiling. She takes a deep breath before lowering her head and looking back at the Handler.

“Broke his contract?” She questions emotionlessly

The Handler nods as she sets her tea cup down once more, giving the assassin her full attention, “yes, sadly. He abandoned his mission and seems to have opened a worm-hole to a date and time unknown to anyone using his powers.”

Unknown to anyone. Tori scoffs because it wasn’t unknown. She knew where that bastard went but not exactly when. Their conversation that morning suddenly made sense. He was planning this and didn’t even tell her. He had left her.

“That fucking…” the rest of her sentence falls short as she gives the rug below her a red-tinted stare.

“Oh you had no idea,” The Handler interrupts her eureka moment, “you poor soul.”

The mocking in her tone turns Tori’s glare onto her, “watch your mouth,” she warns darkly, fists clenched as her arms remain crossed, “I can still turn you into a monkey without blinking.”

“Then I assume you know nothing about where he went?” She asks in a sweet sounding tone that made Tori want to gag, “I assumed since you were married and so in love that he would have told you something.”

The smirk on her face was condescending, like she had been waiting for this moment her whole life. She was probably enjoying it since she clearly had a thing for Five the moment he stepped into the building as a young man.She had always wanted them to crash and burn, and here she was getting her wish.

“If I knew anything, you assume I would still be here?” Tori rolls her eyes.

Handler swirls her cup around on the coaster without looking away from her eyes, “you’re a skilled deceiver,” she says, “you could merely be here to lead us in the wrong direction. Everyone knows your loyalty lies with your husband.”

But apparently his don’t lie with me, she thinks bitterly. Subconsciously, her hands had fallen into her lap and her fingers spun the wedding band around and around. She rarely took it off, so the silver was warm from her body heat. Despite that, it felt cold and a little heavier than it did this morning. 

“Get to the point of this,” Tori seethes, “it’s getting annoying.”

Having too much fun with this entire thing, Handler gives a happy nod, “of course. Though, you shouldn’t be in any rush. The Board will be detaining you until they’re sure you have no information on Five’s whereabouts.”


	4. THREE

“Detaining me?” She asks in amusement, her fingers halting on her wedding band, “oh really?”

The arrogant tone didn’t phase the Handler, who’s smile had yet to waver their entire conversation. Tori didn’t care if she sounded cocky, because she knew the chances of them even getting close enough to try and detain her were slim to none. They knew that too, so what gave them the confidence to even attempt it?

“I’m afraid so,” the Handler says as she places both palms flat on her maple desk, “just until you admit to any information you have on your husband, or ex-husband’s it seems, whereabouts.”

Tori sighs in what sounds like boredom, “that’s rich,” she says, “but if you’re done with your scare tactics, I have a bastard to track down.”

She sets her feet down on the plush rug below the chairs, pushing herself up in one swift motion. The door swung open at the same time, making both her and the Handler look towards it. But only Tori looked surprised by who stood in the doorway.

AJ Carmichael himself. A ghost to her, and someone she vowed to kill if she ever saw him.

The air grew thick in tension as she turned her body in his direction, clenched fists giving away the emotion her face hid very well. It’s not like she could be mistaking someone else as AJ in a fit of emotional overwhelming. She only knew of one man with an actual fishbowl as a head. And the goldfish that sat inside wasn’t something you saw every day.

When she focused on him, all she saw was white walls and IV tubes keeping her alive.

“You have a lot of nerve,” she growls, taking a few quick steps in his direction, eyes flickering between brown and glowing red, “what do you have to do with Five running off, huh?”

“I have nothing to do with it,” he says, not flinching as she marches forward with fury radiating off of her like body heat. As if was what ran through her veins rather than blood. 

She shakes her head, “You wouldn’t show up here for just anything. What did you do with my husband?”

He swirls around in the tank on the shoulders of a human man, “of course I’m not here for nothing,” he says and his hands folded on his stomach, “I’m here as a distraction.”

Her moment of rage and anger blinded her. Something that didn’t usually happen. But when it came to her muddy past, which AJ showed up in a lot, she lost focus on important things. She sneers in confusion before a sharp prick in her neck makes her jerk and spin.

The Handler had made her way behind Tori while she was distracted. That was the only way she could get this close with those annoying heels. And in her ageless grip was a long metal syringe, now pressed all the way down and empty.

“The fuck was that?” Tori snaps and smacks her hand over the puncture area on the side of her neck.

AJ speaks calmly, “you seem to have forgotten your training, flower.”

The name makes her wince. It played in her nightmares most nights, and hearing it out loud again made her want to vomit. Or maybe it was whatever was in the syringe that was still in the Handlers grip. 

“I can still kick your ass,” she snaps, voice sluggish but still spiteful, “but I have bigger problems than you.”

She shoves his composed body out of her way, making him stumble from the doorway and farther into the room. She marches past, hand still on the throbbing spot on her neck. She didn’t want to be near them when she figured out what they injected her with.

Eyes follow her widely, knowing she had just stepped out of the same room as their Chair of the Board, the most powerful person in the Temps Commission. No one dared approach her, practically throwing themselves out of her way when catching sight of her furious red eyes. She was notorious for killing when angry. Usually targets, but that didn’t distill the fear.

Tori finds herself walking towards her home, taking deep breaths so she didn’t cause a nuclear detonation with a blade of grass.

Home was the last place she really wanted to go. But she didn’t have another option right now. Not with her feet growing heavier with every step she took down the sidewalk. It wasn’t even logical to go there since it was the first place they would look for Five and, probably, her. But logic wasn’t at the front of her mind right now.

Nothing was really at the front of her mind. Too much was flying in circles around her head.

Five had left her. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing. He knew very well that breaking his contract would make her a wanted criminal by association. He not only signed his own death warrant but hers too. He didn’t give a shit about her.

Her eyes stung. She told herself it was the growing pain in her neck, but she knew that was bullshit. She hardly felt it.

And AJ Carmichael. The one who tore her mind apart for his desire to have a “perfect team of killers.” The one who killed her friends, her brother, for his own selfish desires. She wanted to turn around and rip him apart piece by piece. Atom by atom. She wanted to hurt him the way he hurt her. But she kept walking, approaching the cream-colored house that lacked the decoration the other houses around it had.

Walking was getting tiring. She felt like her bones were melting and sinking to her feet. It took major concentration to get herself up the front porch steps. Her lungs felt like they had climbed mount Everest and were stranded at the top, the air getting thinner and thinner.

She leans against the gray front door, trying to heave in a deep breath. Just enough to give her the strength to open the door.

She clenches her fist in front of her face and stares down at it. Red energy forms at her fingertips, but faded just as quickly and refused to spark again. She couldn’t heal herself.

What the hell was in that needle?

Her head pounded when she tried to think about it, her vision blurring on the sides. Realizing she was about to pass out in the open, she moves a heavy hand to the warm doorhandle. She wasn’t sure how she managed to pry it open, but she did. And she went stumbling into the entry hall, falling against the nearest wall before weakly kicking the door shut behind her.

TV static was heard around her, high-pitched ringing in the background. While trying to drown it out, she came to the conclusion of what was happening. 

Whatever they forced into her system wasn’t going to kill her. It would just knock her out for who knows how long. And when they found her, they would take her to whatever holding cell they had for her. Probably putting her through torture and interrogations for information. And she knew, better than anyone, that they got what they wanted one way or another. If it came to it, they would kill her. 

She wasn’t going to die just yet. Not with so much rage left to let out.

Filled with a new sense of determination, she pushes herself against the wall, using it as a support as she made her way towards the office she once shared with Five Hargreeves.

She wasn’t getting out of here using her own methods. Not being drugged at least. She had only one option, and it had never been done by her before.

She and Five had theorized years ago about the lengths her powers could go to. She could part air molecules, solid ones, even water molecules. They had yet to prove that she couldn’t part space and time molecules. But they also hadn’t proved that she could. And if Five’s theories from years ago were correct, she was as capable of time travel as he was.

With no briefcase and consciousness slowly fading, it was her last option.

Tori drags herself across the living room, using the couch and any table or lamp in her way as a crutch until she made it to the door.

Her vision was morphing colors, blues and reds switching places while yellows and greens blended together. She didn’t have time to inspect the office for anyone who might’ve made it in without her knowing, like AJ. She had to find the papers before she was gone.

She falls into Five’s chair at his desk on the left side of the room. Papers and notebooks scattered the space. No organization at all.

“I’m...gonna...kill him,” she pants as she begins shuffling through the mess he had left behind.

There were a lot of papers that were covered in math equations, but she paid no mind to any of those. She was looking for words, despite letters starting to float off the pages. It would be in two different handwritings and even some different colored inks from their late nights trying to figure it out.

It was towards the top of the piles, probably from when he was looking at it this morning.

Her mind travels as she finds it: did he know he was going to leave when he told her he loved her this morning? Did he even mean it? All these years, had he been lying for the sake of trying to have a normal life? But he didn’t have the patience to drag a lie out for 30 years.

Unless he was lying to himself too. He just wanted to think he loved her.

She raises the page covered in red and blue numbers. His neat and proper handwriting was mixed with her rushed chicken scratches that would occasionally show up. At the bottom, circled in red pen multiple times was the equation that was supposed to lead him home.

She had no idea if it worked. Even now, not entirely sure if she was awake or having a nightmare while struggling to get in air, something looked wrong. But there was no time left to try and put the numbers in the right place. She would have to use what they had so far.

She stares at it, concentrating to make the numbers stay on the page. Sweat dripped down her forehead as her molecules started to speed up.

The air around her started to heat up like a summer day, the paper started to rustle in her grip. There was no moving to get to whatever whole she ripped in the universe, so she would have to rip it in the right place. Otherwise, she would be tortured until death by a talking fish for the second time in her life.

The universe doesn’t make a sound when it rips. She realized that when she tried to focus even harder on tearing it open. The desk chair just...disappered from under her. And suddenly she was falling through nothing but darkness.

One moment she was sitting in the home office, the next she was sure she was falling into hell. It was boiling hot and not an ounce of light could be seen. In fact, she only knew she was falling because she couldn’t feel anything under her. No wind rushed by her ears, no gravity was pulling her down. She was just gently falling with no idea where she would land or if she even would.

Her head still pounded, but that pain was drained out by another. Her back was blazing in seconds, her nerves screaming in agony as she felt her skin being shredded in seconds. It was a dully familiar pain in a recognizable area. She tried to scream, but the sound wasn’t heard as she kept floating down. Her arms, still heavy, tried to reach for her back as if she could pull out the pain.

“Mph!” she grunts as she finally hits something solid. It was like falling off a bike. It hurt, but no more damage was done than what she already had.

The intense pain in her back was enough to knock all the air from her lungs on its own. Thank god she landed on her stomach or she would’ve passed out much sooner. But as she tried to gasp for air, she also tried to scramble to her feet. Her palms pressed into the pavement, small rocks embedding themselves in the skin.

Sputtering coughs stopped her movements, the jerking it caused stabbing the severed nerves in her spine. Past her distorted vision and whimpers of pain, she saw blood splattering onto what seemed to be a sidewalk. The taste of copper filled her mouth.

There’s no moving form here, she realizes as she takes in a ragged and shallow breath, I don’t even know where I am. I can’t run.

She lets her arms finally give out from under her, falling back onto her stomach as her head fell to the side. Defeat coursed through her, and slowly ever body part started to fall limp. Her heartbeat only grew louder, like it was begging her to keep going. But lead had replaced her bones and she could only gaze at what was in front of her.

She was on a sidewalk, now a bloodstained one, in front of a tall stone building. A lot of tall buildings. A city.

A single street light exposed her to the world, beating down on her beaten body like a personal spotlight. Thankfully, she heard no one approaching. Or maybe her heart was just overpowering the sound. She hoped not, wanting to be dead before anyone got to her.

She would have to yell at Five from the afterlife. Maybe she could beat his ass from there too.

“Oh my god,” a muffled voice could be heard. Like she was underwater, “oh my god. What happened?”

Tori couldn’t turn her head to try and look at who had found her pathetic predicament. One of her hands, which was laying limp by her head, tried to spark red. It flickered like a lightning bug was on her palm, and then fell back into darkness.

“I’ll call an ambulance, don’t worry,” the voice says again in what was probably suppose to be an assuring tone.

With her last usable breath, Tori let’s the loudest shout she can muster, “n-no!”

It sounded like a mouse squeak even to her own fading senses. And what little force it did have made her back throb in defiance.

“No a-ambulance,” she finishes her plea before her eyelids begin to turn to lead.

A face suddenly appears in her line of sight. A frightened-looking girl stood with a phone in her hand, kneeling down to Tori with her other hand shakily reaching for her.

Please don’t, Tori tries to beg but can’t breathe enough to speak. She knew how much it would hurt to put pressure on the wound she had gotten almost 40 years ago. The woman grazes her back, the intense pain making her groan before it finally engulfed her whole body and the world went dark.

At least then, the pain finally stopped.


	5. FOUR

Five knew without a doubt that his wife would kill him the next time they saw each other. For multiple reasons. And if he knew her as well as he undoubtedly does, she’ll do it slowly and painfully while screaming about how much of an idiot he was.

In a single day, he had broken his contract with the commission, made himself a wanted time-traveling criminal, abandoned the love of his life in their clutches, and stranded himself in his 17-year-old body. He would kill for a cup of coffee, right now.

Well, right now he wanted privacy more than he wanted coffee. Five pairs of eyes were staring him down across from the kitchen table as if he had two heads. They were justified to be shocked and even curious, but he wasn’t in the mood for their questions.

He placed a wooden cutting board on his side of the table, suddenly overwhelmed by his hunger. A peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich sounded beyond amazing, right now. It would dull the slight sting of guilt over ripping a hole in the space-time continuum.

He calmly walked over to where he hoped they still kept the bread. The cabinet opened with a loud creaking noise and thankfully it was still there.

“What’s the date?” He asks anyone willing to answer while throwing the plastic bag onto the table, “the exact date?” he clarifies.

Vanya stutters out softly, “the 24th.”

He rolls his eyes, placing two pieces of bread on the cutting board. What part about exact date did she not understand?

“Of?”

“March,” she adds.

Obviously the year was 2019. That was the one part of the equation he was confident in. Funnily enough, Tori had helped him figure that part out. If she could see what he had gotten himself into, she would have the time of her life saying “I told you so.” That was her favorite phrase, and she always found a way to say it.

“Good,” he hums with a nod to himself. At least that part was right.

Silence fell upon everyone once again. But if he knew his siblings, and he doubted they had changed much in 45 years, it wouldn’t last long. 

As if sensing his thoughts, Luther was the one to break it, “So are we gonna talk about that? What just happened?  
Five couldn’t be bothered to reply. There was nothing to really say about it. Nothing that they would understand at least. All he would get in response was blank stares and maybe a few “huh”s if he was lucky.

Luther stands up from the kitchen chair he was occupying. It groans in protest and when Five looks up, he sees why. His brother was gargantuan, unnaturally so. The trench coat he wore looked like it was about to burst at the seams trying to wrap around his shoulders. His head looked far too small for his body, making it impossible for Five to take anything he was about to say seriously.

“It’s been 17 years,” he says.

His older/younger brother scoffs, turning towards him with eyes hardened by a lot more than 17 years apart, “it’s been a lot longer than that.”

He spacial jumps just behind him, to the step stool that hadn’t been moved by their mother in the 17 years it had been here. When he steps up and reaches for the pack of marshmallows, he’s reminded of his uncomfortable clothing.

His 16-year old self wasn’t winning any bodybuilding contests. He had been stuck in an apocalypse with almost no food, so it was no wonder he was starving right now. He was practically skin and bone. So the gray suit he wore on The Commission’s request was baggy and oversized. His pants skimmed the ground when he walked and his sleeves threatened to engulf his hands.

“I haven’t missed that,” he hears Luther mutter behind him. With another spacial jump, he’s standing back in front of the table with his sandwich almost complete.

Everyone else ignores his power, “where’d you go?” Diego asks.

He casually walks to the fridge to get the jar of peanut from inside the door. He never understood why grace put it there, but no one ever had the heart to move it. Not even when they were all 30. He grabs a knife from the drawer beside it.

“The future,” he spins the cap off the jar, “it sucks, by the way.”

“Called it!” Klaus giggles from where he sat on top of the table. Five finally looks up at his siblings.

He didn’t want to allow himself time to miss them, because then he would spend forever on it. And they didn’t have forever. So he gave himself a second to look at his siblings who were still staring at him.

Klaus was in a long black skirt, shirtless with nothing but a thin black jacket made of velvet. He looked like shit. Dark bags under his eyes, a lost look on his face.

Allison had her hair held in perfection by a can of hairspray, he could smell it from here, dressed in expensive-looking clothes and her head tilted slightly up as if she had been practicing looking down on everyone. She was the exact opposite of their sister.

Vanya was dressed for comfort, which didn’t surprise Five at all. Jeans and button-downs had always seemed her style when they were kids. Her hair was pulled away from her face in a low ponytail, and she got rid of the bangs along the way of her life. She was hunched over like she was trying to make herself invisible. She was still Vanya,

Diego seemed to have a permanent brooding expression on his face, frown lines already setting in. His hair was cut short and there looked to be a scar running above his ear from his temple. He was dressed in an almost military-like outfit with holsters for a plethora of knives covering him. He was probably some vigilante, still stuck in their old superhero gig.

“Nice dress,” he says to Klaus without missing a beat. The Seance grins and ruffles his skirt.

His thanks was lost by Vanya asking the question everyone had, “wait,” she says, “how did you get back?”

Five digs the knife into the peanut butter jar, his shiny silver wedding band sliding down his thin finger and almost landing in the sticky mess. He quickly tilts his hand back to avoid the mess, internally groaning.

His ring was too big for him now, much like the rest of his outfit was. This bugged him more than the engulfing jacket and shoes that tried to trip him when he walked. It bugged him enough that he grimaced when he tried to push it back down and failed. This was all he had left of Tori.

“In the end,” he begins while deciding to just slide the ring off his finger and drop it into his jacket pocket. No one seemed to notice, “I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that existed across every possible instance of time.”

Just like he thought, he was only met with confused silence. But he spreads the peanut butter over the bread like he had told them a simple fact. And to him, that what it was. Simple, and a fact.

“That makes no sense,” Diego shakes his head.

Five places the marshmallows carefully on top of the peanut butter spread. Exactly 8, how he liked it, “well it would if you were smarter.”

He doesn’t react when Diego makes a lunge for him, or when Luther holds him back with one oversized hand on his chest. He simply lays the other piece of bread on top of the peanut butter and marshmallow. 

Without missing a beat, Luther asks, “how long were you there?”

“45 years,” Five takes a big bite of his sandwich and mumbles past the mush, “or somewhere around that.”

In shock, both Luther and Diego slowly sit back down in their spots, staring at the youngest in the room. Or apparently the oldest, who didn’t seem phased by the bomb he dropped. He was too engulfed in the best peanut butter-marshmallow sandwich he’d had in years.

“So…” Allison finally speaks up for the first time since Five had arrived in the courtyard, “you’re saying you’re...58?”

Five waves a hand and swallows another bite, “my consciousness is 58,” he says, wiggling his fingers in the air when he realizes how light they feel without the ring, “physically, I’m 17 again.”

Vanya rests her hand on her forehead as if to alleviate a forehead, “how does that even work?” she asks in exasperation.

Oh please. If anyone had a right to be stressed about this, it was him. He left behind a good life to come and save this group of traumatized ex-super heroes. And so far the most he had heard from them was an array of questions; none of which being, “hey are you okay?”

He sighs, turning to give the visible room a once over. Nothing seemed to have changed. Every decoration was still spotless of dust or dirt, probably due to both Grace and Pogo being neat freaks. Even the cabinets looked like they had a coat of fresh paint on them.

“She kept telling me the numbers looked off,” he says more to himself than to answer Vanya’s question, “if she saw me now she’d be laughing.”

He could see the crinkle-eyed smile clear as day in his mind. The one that twisted his stomach into knots when she gave it to him. The shake of her shoulders followed by a loving, “you’re an idiot.”

And he was. But he was a lucky idiot.

“Who’s “she”?” asks Klaus in what was supposed to be a whisper but echoed across the kitchen.

He ignores the question completely and turns back to the kitchen table. He picks up the newspaper that had been left on the table probably that morning. Pogo always got the morning paper.

The headline didn’t surprise nor did it sadden him. City Says Goodbye To Reginald Hargreeves. He knew his father died of heart failure, but it had never really bothered him as much as his siblings dying in an apocalypse did. If anything, his father only got karma. Years of neglecting his kids and forcing so much responsibility on them had caught up to him.

“I missed the funeral,” he says and tosses the paper back on the table.

“You knew?” Luther says, clearly the only one even a little upset about it.

Five rolls his blue eyes and shoves his hand in his jacket pocket, “what part of “the future” did you not understand? Heart failure?” He didn’t wait for an answer to his rhetorical question, knowing Luther would give him one, before asking an actual one.

“Yeah,” Diego says immediately.

“No,” says Luther at the same time.

The two brothers glared daggers at each other. They had been like that since they were kids, ready to fight over any disagreement. That hadn’t faded with age, apparently. Five takes another bite of his sandwich.

“Nice to know nothing’s changed,” he says as he walks away from the group of confused and irritated siblings. He had to change before this suit ate him alive.

His room was untouched from the way he had left it all those years ago. It was clean, thanks to Grace who never missed a room on her rounds, and all of his clothes had even been washed. Morbidly, he wonders how long she had been washing his clothes in hopes he would come back. 

If he had found a way sooner, maybe he would’ve. But...he wasn’t 100% sure he would’ve taken the chance. He was shocked he took it even now. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision he jumped on during a burst of confidence. He could do it, he could turn things around for his family. Because no matter how badly they annoyed him then, and still did now, they were just that. His family. His pain in the ass siblings.

He glanced at the walls, his posters of dumb science jokes and old music still clung to the wall. An oddly placed AC/DC poster was purposely crooked. He had hung up to hide a hole Luther had made between their rooms during a tantrum one day. Luther had one on his side too for extra security. The desk was dusted, his pencils and old school notebooks neatly arranged how he left them every morning.

He looks back at the open closet. The only thing that he had hanging up was a row of identical Umbrella Academy uniforms, all pressed and smelling like laundry detergent. And his only option.

“Shit,” he sighs and grabs one from the center. It would do for now.

He practically swapped one pair of chains for another. The Commission for the Academy. Neither of which he had any desire to be a part of anymore. While buttoning up his jacket, looking in the mirror to dictate how stupid he looked, he was quick to notice a missing piece. His ring.

The stupid ring he had only forgotten to wear once. And it was a week after he had gotten it. He left it behind during a mission with Tori, forgetting to put it back on after a shower. She told him it didn’t bother her that he didn’t wear it, but he knew her better than he knew himself. The slight downturn of her lip and hesitation in her smile gave her away. 

He rarely took it off after that, and when he did he never forgot to return it.

He grabs the gray jacket from the back of the desk chair, where he had thrown it. He fished inside the pockets until the cold silver found his palm. Too big to wear, but too valuable to keep loosely in his pockets. 

He stared down at it, picturing the girl who wore the other half. God, he missed her already. The Commission was probably furious with her, thinking she knew something about his plans (which wasn’t a plan at all). He knew that she was more than capable of protecting herself, but damn he wanted to know she was safe.

She was probably beyond pissed at him, right now. She might be ripping apart any Commission monkeys that came at her just blow off some steam. Every second he thought about it, the more he began to regret his decision. He should’ve left a note, hell he could’ve left a voicemail on their home phone. When, or if, he ever saw her again, he wouldn’t blame her if she punched him in the jaw instead of kissing him.

He grips the ring in a fist, pressing it to his forehead. Standing in the middle of his childhood bedroom with a dull ache in his chest for its missing piece, he tries to convince himself that this was the right choice. Because, even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t take it back.

“Dammit.”


	6. FIVE

The first thing Tori felt upon regaining consciousness, was only pain. Unbearable throbbing running up her entire spine. But it wasn’t new. In fact, she knew exactly what had caused it and how. What she didn’t understand was why.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, hoping she could drift back into unconsciousness. She was laying on her stomach, a soft pillow under her head. The lack of obnoxiously bright lights through her eyelids told her that wherever she was, it wasn’t a hospital. 

She pry’s one eye open, peeling her eyelids apart. They were stuck together. How long had she been asleep? 

Once both eyes open, she takes in what she can without moving. It was going to hurt when she did and she wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

Dark green walls. A wooden side table. She was laying on a set of white sheets, a green pillow keeping her head up. No lights were on, not even the lamp on the dresser. A glass of water sat tauntingly in front of her on the side table. Suddenly realizing how thirsty she was, she slowly started to move.

It felt like cold razors were dragging down her back. As she dragged herself weakly across the sheets, she could feel whatever healing it had done with her passed out being pulled apart. The warmth of blood spread across her skin.

But she grabbed the glass of water, hand trembling, and pulled it towards her. Some water dripped down the side, and a little got on the bed, but she chugged every drop she could. It was lukewarm but cold enough that she knew it hadn’t been sitting out for too long. A few hours at most.

She places the cup back down on the wood. Her eyes give the room a closer look.

It was obviously someone’s bedroom, but not a very personalized one. No pictures were on the dresser across from the bed, no clothes hung in the closet, not even a pair of shoes by the door. Was she in some kind of hotel? No. The sheets smelled like they were washed a home-brand detergent.

She bends an arm, hissing as the gash in her back protests. That was more annoying than painful. She had to fix that immediately.

She takes a deep breath, focusing on the pain that was slowly spreading to the rest of her limbs. Her fingertips started to glow red as a reaction, red energy sprouting like tiny plants and wrapping down around her fingers. It flickered, lighting up the room like a torch before it started getting dimmer and dimmer until it faded and the room was dark again.

“Damn,” her rough voice barely gets out.

What was in that needle? She asks herself. It was no drug they had ever used on her before. If her powers still didn’t work, how long would it take for them to come back? She did not doubt that they would, it was just a matter of when. Without them, and in the state she’s in, she’s a sitting duck for any Commission agents sent after her.

She pushes her body up off the mattress, joints popping and crackling after not moving for a while. Grimacing past the pain, she sits on her knees and takes in the room to its full extent.

The lights were off, but the ceiling fan was running. So someone else had to be nearby. There was one door leading in and out of the room, the closet only being covered by a thin white curtain. The dresser had nothing on top of, just a mirror on the wall above it.

She looks towards her reflection, expecting to be repulsed by the amount of blood on her body. But she was unusually clean. Bandages were wrapped around her entire torso, a button-down shirt loosely around her to provide some coverage. A pair of pajama pants maybe? They were plaid and fleece, not something she would have chosen for herself but comfortable.

She looked at her face and at that moment, her pulse nearly stopped. Her hair was autumn brown, no more silver streaks running from her roots. Her skin lacked every wrinkle she had grown used to seeing. She was...young. Very young. 

Thinking she had to be hallucinating, she moves as quickly as her battered body would allow. She planted her feet on the carpeted ground, stumbling towards the mirror. Her hands grip at the dresser for support as she blinks rapidly.

Still the picture of youth. 

“I’ll kill him,” she whispers as a hand reaches up to touch her smooth face, “I’ll rip his lungs out.”

Her physical age was easy to pinpoint. With the wound being as fresh as it was, that put her at exactly 17. Maybe a few days older since she had been out cold for a while. She pulls at her cheek like it would melt away and she would look her age again. When that didn’t work, she sneered at her reflection in disgust.

She turns her eyes away, focusing on anything but what was in front of her. She listened to her surroundings, hoping she could hear if someone else was nearby. 

The first thing she noticed was the music. It was quiet but definitely nearby. She couldn’t tell what it was from in here, so she decides it was finally time to move on from the bedroom. Her back doesn’t allow her to stand up straight, so she’s hunched over as she slowly moves towards the door.

When it opened, the music was suddenly a lot louder. The thick wood had been muffling it. Stepping past the doorway, she felt the strings of the violin vibrating the air of what seemed to be an apartment.

At least, it was small enough to be one. Just outside the door of the bedroom was a small dining area, just a small circle table, and two chairs so no more than two people lived here. Past that was the living room to the left, no walls enclosing it. A couch and coffee table were the biggest pieces of furniture that Tori could see. 

The source of the sweet violin music was across the small living room, in front of the large window that probably looked down onto the city. A girl stood there, the instrument on her shoulder, and facing the window like it was an audience. Tori stood and listened, tugging at the button-up shirt that probably belonged to who she was watching.

The mystery girl seemed to be in her own world, not noticing her guest at first. And Tori knew she hadn’t been exactly quiet when fumbling with the door handle. It had been a few second struggle with her shaking hands. Still, she was oblivious. 

“Wh-where am I?” the voice crack made her roll her eyes at herself. She sounded like a scared kid.

Granted, that’s probably what she looked like right now, but it wasn’t how she felt.

The soft music came to an abrupt stop as the girl jumped. She spun, her low ponytail swinging around as her head did. Her dark eyes widen when noticing who had walked into her living room, like she had seen a ghost.

“You’re awake,” she girls says, slowly laying her violin on the couch that she stood just in front of, “thank god. I was starting to worry. Well, I’ve been worried since you got here but you haven’t woken up in three days so I was starting to panic.”

Three days? That explains the dry throat when she woke up.

“Where am I?” She asks again, voice more steady this time around. 

“My apartment,” the girl folds her hands in front of her nervously, “when I found you, you said no ambulance. I didn’t know if you were in some kind of trouble so I just brought you here.”

Tori glances around the room, grimacing as her movements pulled at the bandages on her back. Some pictures were hung up in here, though none were very personal. A few photos of an orchestra band, a few books on the coffee table.

“Three days…” Tori mumbles. That made this even more complicated.

The girl suddenly gives a small gasp, making Tori spin her head in her direction. She expected there to be some bad news like “oh some people in suits have been here looking for you” or “I posted your picture in every newspaper in town to find your family.”

But she said, “oh god, you’re probably starving I’ll make you something to eat,” Tori watches in confusion as the girl rushes past her, towards an open door that lead into a kitchen. She motions to the table holding two chairs, “you should sit down. You don’t want to strain yourself.”

She could feel fresh blood trickling against the bandages when turned her neck to follow the girl’s movements into the kitchen. She watched her through the bar window as she grabbed a carton of eggs from the fridge door.

Normally, Tori wasn’t good at following orders. Even in the commission, she had always had a problem with authority that everyone just put up with because of her skill set. But right now, the pain was only going to get worse the longer she stood up. So she shuffled towards the chair that faced the kitchen, not wanting her back to a stranger while so vulnerable.

The girl was already cracking an egg on a pan when Tori settled her attention back on her. She watched warily, expecting her to turn and pull a gun on her. Or for the door to crash open and someone holding a briefcase to drag her away. But it remained eerily quiet. The loudest sound was the sizzling of the eggs on the copper pan.

“I hope you like eggs,” the girl says in an attempt to lighten the mood, “it’s all I have until I go to the store later today.”

“Yeah,” Tori says, “I like eggs.”

Silence falls again. The girl pulls a blue plate from the cupboard, sliding it onto the counter that was below the bar window. She swings the pan around, scraping the eggs onto it with the spatula. She occasionally looks up at Tori without saying anything.

She had questions, justifiably so. But Tori had no answers right now. How did she even begin to tell the truth? And if she did, there was no way this nice stranger had any reason to believe her. She would be on her way to some insane asylum before she could run this time. As she dug in her mind for a believable story, her hands reach for each other in her lap. But when one hand reaches for the wedding band and comes up empty, she looks down.

It wasn’t in its usual place. And she didn’t know how to feel about that. 

Actually, she felt upset about it. Her heart jumped in her throat when she realized it was gone. But should she be upset about it? It obviously meant nothing to Five, why did it have to mean anything to her? 

Still, she looks up at the girl who was coming back through the doorway with a plate and fork in her hand.

“My stuff,” she says, “my clothes from before, where are they?” she tried not to sound pleading. But she was tired and sore and bleeding, dammit. She just wanted the reassurance of something familiar to confirm that this wasn’t a fever dream.

The girl nods her head quickly, “I have it all,” she says, “it’s okay, calm down,” her voice was like she was talking to a small child. But she wouldn’t believe that she wasn’t, “I can get it. But you should eat.”

The plate is placed in front of her, and she sighs before nodding. It’s not like she could fight right now, anyway. So she took a bite of the fluffy looking scrambled eggs. The moment she swallowed, her stomach started rumbling. She had neglected to realize her hunger as well as her thirst. The girl, pleased as Tori started to shovel the eggs into her mouth, walked over to where she had been standing a few moments ago with her violin.

There was a small duffle bag on the floor, hidden by the couch from Tori’s view and anyone’s who walked in. She watches as she brings it to her, not stopping to chew her food before swallowing it. The girl holds the bag out since it was clear there was no bending to get it off the floor.

Tori drops the fork on the plate, taking the bag from her hand and setting it on her knees, “thanks,” she mutters.

Just because she was an assassin doesn’t mean she didn’t have manners. Her mother raised her to be polite, after all. She reached into the unzipped top to see if her ring had fallen through time with her. The girl takes a seat in the chair across from her.

Her black tank top from training, now ripped and bloodied beyond repair, her jeans now also stained red and covered in dirt. At the bottom, glinting in the little light that made it inside the bag from the ceiling fan, was sitting at the bottom under her sneakers. She pulled it into the light.

The girl comments on what she saw her holding, “a wedding ring?”

Tori gives a stiff nod, staring at it as if it would explode in her hand. She didn’t want to put it on, but she didn’t want to toss it away either. Sure, she was pissed at Five. Beyond pissed at him. But she did love him, no matter how much she was regretting the decision right now. Even if he didn’t love her, doesn’t mean her feelings went away. 

“You look pretty young to be married.”

Tori set the ring on the table beside her plate, letting the bag fall to the ground since she couldn’t bend to put it down herself. 

This was worse than having old-person back pain. 

Having seen that she was calmed down again and wouldn’t answer that particular question, the girl decides now is the time to ask her questions after waiting three days for the answers. So while Tori is scooping at the rest of her eggs, she realizes that she was going to have to answer on the fly.

Something she had learned from her time with the commission was how to survive an interrogation. Answer as honestly as possible. Don’t lie where you don’t have to. If they sense you’re telling the truth in any part of your story, they’ll be more inclined to believe the rest of it. 

“So what’s your name?” she starts off simple enough.

Tori looks up, taking her time with the rest of her food once she had something in her stomach finally. This girl seemed innocent enough. Just someone who found a bleeding teenager in the street and decided she might be worth helping. And if she was a Commission agent, she would’ve called in the big guns already. After three days, there was no doubt a price on Tori’s head that everyone in the commission knew about.

“Tori,” she says, “Batista.Yours?”

“Vanya.”

Tori nods, taking another bite of her food, “I like that.”

“Tori,” Vanya says softly, “what happened to you? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Honesty where it doesn’t matter, Tori says to herself as she slowly chews her bite of eggs to buy herself some more time. It didn’t give her more than a few seconds to decide which part to give the honesty to.

“A car accident,” she says and lowers her fork to the empty plate, “that’s what happened. And trouble? No, not immediately.”

Vanya seemed to know that someone wasn’t true, but she also didn’t know what. That looked particularly bad for a car accident that hadn’t been all over the news. And in three days, she hadn’t heard about any missing girls nearby that would match Tori’s description. She was still young, she must have some family out there looking for her.

“Okay,” she says, “are you from around here? Is there someone we can call for you?”

Tori shakes her head, one finger twirling around the ring that sat on the table, “I’m from Brazil,” she says, “no family anywhere near here.”

“Brazil…” Vanya trails and stares at her for a long second before blinking and looking towards the table. Her hands still on the placemat, “how did end up here from Brazil after a car accident?”

Tori doesn’t answer. She had no lie or truth to justify that. It would just have to go unanswered for now. She didn’t have the energy to spin some elaborate story that connected all of those scattered dots. So they sit in silence, the soft sound of metal spinning on wood filling it. 

Vanya was no stranger to things this weird. Her family had made her numb to unbelievable things, so she decided not to question anymore. There was more to the story, but if she wanted to share it then she would. 

“Alright,” she nods, “you don’t have to answer. Do you want more eggs?”

“Yes please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates won’t be as often as they have been. I’m now working full time and going to school full time since I’m a broke college student. Thanks for the love on this, though!! I can’t tell you all how happy its made me!!


	7. SIX

Tori sat on the edge of Vanya’s bathtub, her feet inside of it, and her back facing out. The bandages had been removed so her 5’0” savior could clean the wound. Normally, she hated anyone seeing her in a vulnerable position. She fought tooth and nail, saying she was fine and that she could do it on her own. But all it took was one hard intake of breath and she had almost collapsed on the spot.

Vanya had drug her into the bathroom before she could say anything else, and it had been silent since. 

This shouldn’t even be a problem, Tori bitterly thinks to herself, I should be able to heal myself by now. She stared down at her hand that curled around her wedding ring on her thigh, the other one holding a towel to her chest. Her fingers glinted a dim red, but nothing like the blinding light that was supposed to be coming from them. She huffed to herself before giving up once again. 

They would come back when whatever drug they forced into her fully wore off. Her muscles were still stuff from it, and there was still a dull ache in her neck.

“It can’t be as bad as it looks,” Vanya says in an attempt to lessen her obviously bad mood, “This is the strongest rubbing alcohol I could find and you haven’t flinched once.”

This isn’t the worst physical pain Tori has ever felt. At one point, it had been. But a lot worse had happened since the car accident. And for the most part, Five had always been the one to clean her up. Before him, she had always patched herself up with unsteady stitches. Once they started cleaning each other up, she realized how much easier things were when you had someone helping you.

She didn’t trust Vanya like she trusted Five at one point, but saving her from bleeding out in an alley had put her in her good graces.

“It’s not so bad,” says Tori, “like a big paper cut.”

Vanya snorts as she dabs at the laceration with an alcohol-soaked rag, “a deep paper cut. You’re lucky it didn’t hit your spine.”

“It’s just off by a half a centimeter,” Tori says seriously without thinking. Her mind was still fuzzy from waking up a few hours ago. She feels Vanya’s touch halt for a second, and she knows that she’s questioning how she knows exactly how off she was from dying. But she doesn’t voice her concerns as her gentle touch resumes.

Tori slowly looks over her shoulder, looking at Vanya’s concentrated expression. The sink next to her was filled with warm blood-tinted water, a rag draped over the end that had once been white. On the counter was a bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol that was halfway gone next to a pile of fresh bandages. Vanya was cleaning her up for probably the fourth day in a row without so much as knowing her name until now.

“So why are you here?” Vanya asks casually like it was simple salon talk.

Tori smirks and looks back down at her hand. Her ring was still clenched in her fist, “you brought me here from the alley apparently.”

Vanya chuckles, a small smile pulling at her lips, “you know what I meant.”

Her smirk fell. There was no point in lying for a few reasons: one, Vanya had proven herself the smallest amount in Tori’s eyes. She was worthy of a little more background information on the girl she saved and two; if Five’s equations were even a little bit correct, the world was about to end in this timeline. Vanya wouldn’t be alive long enough to do any damage with the truth.

“I’m looking for someone,” she says. The weight of Vanya’s hand pressing a rag to her back comes to a slow halt, “I think they’re here. At least, they’re supposed to be.”

She hears the sound of another rag being dropped into the red water filling the sink. She glances over her shoulder to see thin hands reaching for the bandages and medical tape.

“Who is it?” Vanya asks, “I’ve lived here my whole life, maybe I can help,” she presses a thin layer of bandage over the cut, and Tori grimaces at the same time. Thinking she had hurt her, Vanya yanks her hands away, “sorry!”

The teen girl shakes her head, “it’s okay.”

She feels the cotton press back to her skin as Vanya patiently waits for an answer. But she didn’t want to say it out loud. Her eyes were now glued to her hand as she turned it over and uncurled her fingers. The princess cut diamond glared at her in the fluorescent lights, taunting her that the promise it represented had been shattered like tempered glass. She wanted to throw it down the tub drain she saw in the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t bring herself to let it drop.

Vanya feels her muscles tense under her hands as she lays another layer over the wound. Looking towards her face, which had turned stony and emotionless, she followed her angry eyes.

“Your husband?” She questions softly, not wanting to press for answers if she didn’t want to give them, “wife?”

Tori pinches the ring with two fingers and glares at it, “ex-husband if I have anything to say about it,” she says in an acidic tone, “he left me. I shouldn’t have even followed his dumbass here.”

Why she was suddenly ranting about her marriage problems to a stranger, she’ll never know. But there was a pit of fury in her stomach and she wanted to just scream at something. And if that something was willing to listen, even better.

“And now, I can’t even go back because he had to mess everything up that I worked for! No note, no call, not even a text! He didn’t even have the balls to tell me that he was leaving himself so I had to hear it from our boss!” she clenches her fist again, her hands shaking in rage, “we’ve been together for…” she huffed when she couldn’t say the real amount of years she had put up with his shit, “forever! I didn’t even want to get married before that fucker!”

Vanya’s hands lifted from her back, but she hardly noticed as she continued.

“And the day he decides he wants to follow through on his stupid plan, that I helped him figure out and he still managed to mess up, he can’t even take me with him! It’s like I didn’t give him everything I had that asshole!”

Vanya had backed up a few steps from the edge of the tub, but Tori still had yet to notice, “Tori,” she says calmly.

“But that’s what I get! I knew he was going to be a pain in my ass the day I met him!”

“Tori!”

“I wouldn’t have stopped him if he told me he wanted to go! But Five Hargreeves does whatever he wants whenever he wants with no regard for anyone else around him!”

“TORI!” 

“What?!” she turns around, angrily holding a towel to her chest and slamming her bare feet on the tile ground of the bathroom. Vanya was standing by the door, eyes wide as she stared at the furious girl in front of her. Tori scrunches her nose in confusion at her reaction before she notices what it was about.

The molecules around her fists were burning crimson, her hands being the burning white center of them.

“You-you healed,” Vanya says in a very calm and quiet voice, “your back.”

Tori didn’t have to look in the mirror above the sink to know that her eyes were the same red as her hands. It always happened with her powers. But it was probably new to Vanya, so she takes a few deep breaths to slow the molecules that had heated up during her rant.

Five always managed to piss her off so much that her emotions overpowered her control. At least it caused something helpful this time rather than blowing up the sink. Their toaster was never replaced after that incident.

“Sorry,” she mutters in response as the red glow in the room slowly disappears.

Vanya stays patiently by the door, looking at her with no overwhelming emotions on her face. Tori slowly sits up straight, her muscles popping. The intense burn that she felt that morning was more of an irritating sting now, like a tattoo needle. It wasn’t completely healed, but enough that she could finally sit comfortably.

She looks back at Vanya, unsure of how to approach the topic of what she witnessed. All she could do was grip the towel to her chest and try to break the silence.

“Um…” she says, “I can explain.”

“Did you say Five Hargreeves?”

That’s what she was worried about? Her eyes lit up because of a name? Not the blazing light that just came from her fists? Confused, Tori can only nod her head in response. Vanya smiles, reaching for the rubbing alcohol bottle that was still open and barely on the edge of the sink anymore. She pops the cap closed before lifting the drain from the sink.

“That’s my brother,” she says and her face drops, “there’s a lot to unpack here.”

Tori scoffs, “holy shit,” she says as she slowly stands from the tub, “Vanya Hargreeves.”

Her sister-in-law nods her head, sheepishly looking down at the ground as her last name is spoken. It was never used anymore. She clears her throat.

“You should get dressed. There’s clearly a lot to talk about.”

Vanya leaves the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind her. Tori wouldn’t be surprised if she was making a break for the nearest police station right now. But she didn’t hear scrambling footsteps on the other side of the door.

Five mentioned his siblings from time to time, though not a lot. It obviously upset him when he thought about how they died. But he did like to talk about the few happy childhood memories he had with them. Vanya was, from what Tori could tell with what little he said about them, was his favorite sibling to be around when he could. He said she was innocent and sweet and completely against violence.

“I don’t think she could’ve done some of the things we had to,” he had said while hiding out in a bar during a mission once, “she was kind of lucky to have no powers. It saved her, in a way.”

Apparently, she hadn’t changed. Helping a hurt stranger with no alternative motive wasn’t something anyone on the streets would do. It took a rare kind of person. A truly good kind of person. 

She slides on the button-up shirt she had been given from said girls closet, relieved that the pain was finally almost gone. How funny that she was found by her of all people, the best of the Hargreeves in her opinion. At least, so far. The only other Hargreeves she had met was Five and he had been nothing but trouble.

When she exits the bathroom and walks into the living room once again, Vanya is already sitting on the couch. She was staring at her hands in thought, but she was still there. She hadn’t run to the police, she didn’t have to phone in her hand to call for help. She was just sitting there.

Tori clears her throat, hesitating to sit anywhere in case she was told to leave. Vanya looks up.

“Before you tell me to leave,” says Tori awkwardly, looking anywhere but at Vanya’s eyes, “uh...thanks. For...ya know, not letting me die.”

Vanya snorts, surprising her. When she looks up, she’s smiling like a joke was told, “when you say it like that, I sound like a saint.”

“The closest to one I’ve ever met,” Tori smirks. Vanya motions to the chair that was across from her.

She had her hands clasped on her lap, a calm look on her face. Tori takes the offered seat and decides to let Vanya take the lead in this conversation, “so you have powers. Like everyone in the Academy,” she observes. 

Tori nods.

“What exactly...are they? What was that?” she leans forward in genuine interest.

Not a twisted sense of interest, like AJ had when they had first met. He had only shown interest for her own selfish reasons. Vanya was just...curious. Like a child would be if they met a superhero on the streets. It made Tori’s heart feel like a ray of sunshine to know this was an honest question.

“Uh…” she smirks, caught off guard at first, “Molecular Manipulation,” she says, “I can control matter down to the atom. Change their shape, their speed. It’s useful when you consider everything in the universe is made up of molecules.”

Vanya flashes a child-like grin, “that’s so cool!”

Tori smiles, “thanks. I can usually heal myself pretty fast but when I woke up they just...weren’t working. I guess getting so pissed at Five gave them a jump start.”

The violinist leans back on the couch casually, “Five got married,” she says out loud as she pictures her brother in her head. He had been hard headed and stubborn even when they were kids and that hadn’t changed with age. From the short conversation she’d had with him when he got back, she knew it. Who knew he could get someone to put up with him forever, “I saw the ring when he showed up, but it didn’t seem important at the time. I never would’ve connected it.”

“So he made it,” Tori sighs, tilting her head so her neck pops now she can do it without wincing, “I hope it hurt him as much as it did me.”

“He seemed okay,” Vanya shakes her head, “a little more of a jerk, but okay.”

“No. He’s always a jerk. It’s his personality.”

They share a light laugh that loosens the tense air that had filled the apartment. Tori allows herself to relax, her shoulders slouching as her guard falls, “is he still here? Or did he run off again?”

Vanya nods immediately, “he’s still here,” she assures her, “I’m not sure where, but he’ll probably show back up our old house. We can go there and find him, if you want?”

Tori purses her lips. The anger she felt at him momentarily wavered in place of the hurt it was hiding. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind, to throw him through a window and rip him a new one for abandoning her like he promised he never would. She wanted to shove the ring back in his face and tell him to choke on it. But what if she couldn’t do it when she saw him again? What if it hurt too much to look at him?

Then I’ll kick his ass while crying, she tells herself with a confident nod towards her sister-in-law.

“Okay,” she says, “just do me a favor when we find him?”

“Yeah, totally,” Vanya says as both girls stand from their comfortable spots in the living room.

Tori smirks, “well. One more on top of how much I already owe you.”

“The answer is still yes,” Vanya teases.

“Don’t stop me from tearing him apart.”


	8. SEVEN

FIve’s childhood home was the size of Tori’s childhood neighborhood. And it could probably fit her entire streets worth or people and still have extra bedrooms. When Vanya came to a stop just beyond the intimidating front gates, Tori’s eyes doubled in size.

He said his father was rich, but she pictured a three-story suburban house and a big back yard. Maybe an above-ground pool. Not Bruce Wayne’s manor. But that’s what she was standing in front of.

“I’ve already been here once today.” Vanya says as she pushes open the gate with one arm, “it didn’t exactly go well.”

“How so?” Tori makes conversation as she follows her onto the pathway. She could see lights on the ground that would light the way to the door during the night, but at noon they were turned off. Vanya sighs heavily and they take a slow pace to the front door.

Tori didn’t mind the leisurely stroll, it gave her time to think about how she was going to approach the situation she was walking into. Did she want to go in as Tori or as a calm and understanding wife?

“Me and my siblings...we never really got along. Not as kids, and I kind of made it worse in the past few years,” Vanya shakes her head and elaborates without being prompted when she sees Tori’s curious gaze, “I wrote this book. About being number seven, no powers, and everything. I don’t know how much Five told you.”

The younger looking girl nods as she recalls a few past conversations, “he read it,” she says as they begin to climb the oversized front steps to the doors, “had a copy on our shelf at home. If you ask me, you just told the truth.”

Vanya’s cheeks tint pink and she averts her gaze to the steps below her feet as they came to the top, “you both read it?”

Tori smiles, shoving her hands in the pockets of the black leather jacket she borrowed from her new friend. Her old one was ruined in the time-jump, “you told your story,” she says reassuringly, “no one is allowed to get mad at you for that.”

Vanya’s face turns to shock. No one, at least in her family, had been supportive of her book. Her siblings had been very clear that they despised her for it, but this was the first positive review that felt...personal.

“Th-thanks,” she stutters out, trying not to show how much it meant to her.

Tori shrugs before motioning to the door, “well...I have a husband to divorce.”

Vanya pushes open one of the two giant doors that lead into the foyer, Tori following her closely behind. The smell of lemon wood polish filled her nose as soon as she walked in, and the bright sun was blocked out by the solid wood walls. 

The moment her borrowed sneakers, her’s being covered in blood and mud, hit the marble ground, she didn’t bother giving herself a moment to take in the interior of the house. All of her anger was channeled onto the top of the pile of suppressed emotions. Just knowing she was seconds away, steps away, from seeing him again was making her blood boil.

“FIVE HARGREEVES!” she screams.

_________________________________________________

Five stood in the third kitchen in his childhood home, holding a coffee mug in one hand while shuffling through all of the cabinets with his other hand. He hadn’t had his second cup of coffee that morning due to mulling over his life choices. 

Klaus sat at the table, feet on the surface, and a guitar inexplicably in his lap being hugged to his chest. Allison was walking rather impatiently around the other end of the room, realizing Five had no intention of answering any questions with answers that made sense to her.

Five rolls his eyes, “I’m not even sure how that’s possible,” he states and slams the empty coffee mug onto the counter, “an entire square black, 42 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, and not a single drop of coffee.”

Allison rolled her eyes and looked at her older (younger?) brother in exasperation, “dad hated caffeine,” she states simply.

Klaus looks at her with dilated pupils as he plucks at the soundless guitar strings, “well, he hated children, too, and he had plenty of us,” he giggles to himself but no one else seemed amused at his joke.

Irritated and low on caffeine, Five shoves his hands in pants pockets, “I’m taking the car,” he states and turns towards the nearest exit.

Klaus lowers his feet from the table, suddenly very interested in his brother, “where are you going?” he asks.

Five stops in his tracks and turns to glare at him, “to get a decent cup of coffee by myself.”

Allison scrunches her perfectly done eyebrows, “do you even know how to drive?”

The comment made Five sneer at her, “I’m 58 years old,” he snaps, “I know how to do everything.”

“FIVE HARGREEVES!”

Except face my wife, he thinks to himself, the sneer dropping from his five. His heart leaps into his throat, but he wasn’t sure if it was from elation or fear. Klaus and Allison both look at him in confusion before all heads turn in the direction it had come from, The front of the house, most likely the front door.

Five sighs, not at all ready for what the Brazilian girl had in store for him, “or maybe not,” he says and his siblings look back at him.

“Who’s that?” asks Allison.

Diego suddenly pokes his head into the kitchen, an eyebrow raised as he points behind him, “there’s a really angry and hot girl here for you. Glowing red eyes, actually kind of scary.”

“Yeah,” Five sighs and shakes head, “that’s my wife.”

“Wife?”  
“Excuse me?”  
“Your what?”

Blue light and a warping sound is their only response.

________________________________________

She stood in the center of the foyer, rage making her eyes glow a vibrant red. Vanya stood by the front door, hoping this would be over soon and both her newly found siblings would be alive still when it did. 

At the top of the stairs, Tori spots the first person she had seen since entering the house. A guy in an all-black tactical outfit, covered in throwing knives. She looked up at him, hands shaking as her pent up anger tried to rearrange the molecules of the hanging chandelier above her.

“Where is he?” she seethes.

The guy, still unknown despite knowing all the names of Five’s siblings, jerks a thumb over his shoulder as he takes in her form, “I-I’ll go get him,” and he disappears from her sight.

If she didn’t see him a few seconds, she was going to rearrange the nearest vase into a megaphone. He must have sensed her anger in the air because she heard the familiar whooshing sound that followed him every time he jumped somewhere. It was a few feet behind her, and she spun to finally look at him.

He stood in his old uniform, the one she had seen from the few pictures he had saved from the apocalypse. An ugly black and red with their logo on the chest.

“I missed you too,” he says lightly, a small smile playing on his lips. As if he could even attempt to lighten the mood.

She takes a few wide, furious steps in his direction, pointing a finger in his face. Red energy covered her palm, leaking into the air and disappearing before it could cause any damage. Five takes a few retreating steps back.

“That’s what you go with?” she growls, “I missed you?! Do you have any fucking idea what I had to go through because of that stunt you pulled?!”

He sighs, his back coming in contact with the front door. Normally, he knew she wouldn’t hurt him. And while he was sure she still wouldn’t, the anger pulsing off of her made him think that maybe she would make an exception.

“Calm down, Angel,” he tries.

“ANGEL!?” she roars, eyes flaming like the fires from hell were trapped within, “you think you have any right to call me that, right now?! All you had to do was fucking listen to me and we wouldn’t be here right now! Just like every other mess you’ve gotten yourself into!”

He clamps his mouth shut, watching as his siblings slowly made their way to the top of the stairs, watching the commotion like it was a soap opera. He didn’t bother glaring at them, moving his eyes back to Tori.

She had used the same equations he had, and it gave the same results. She was as beautiful as the day they met and every day after that, even screaming at him like she was getting paid for it.

For a scary moment earlier, he wondered if she was dead. Or worse, if the commission had gotten her. Despite the guilt and slight fear he felt right now, relief was still mixed in.

“They tried to detain me because of you! You knew they would try to! You knew what would happen to me the moment you broke the contact and you didn’t care!”

He rolls his eyes, “they wouldn’t have touched you,” he insists.

“This isn’t a conversation, Five! Don’t talk!”

She was so close to him now. He could smell the natural caramel scent that followed her around.

“30 fucking years! I put up with your shit, saved your ass day after day, for 30 years! And you just walk away like I was a second choice?! Is that all I was to you?! A backup plan until you could go back?!”

Her heart ached as she looked at his blue eyes. They never aged, forward or backward, they stayed the same. Even now, knowing she was never what he really wanted, she felt a wisp of butterflies in her stomach when she met them. When his eyes softened at her words, she smothered the butterflies and let anger take their place.

“You know that’s not true, angel.”

“Say it again,” she dares in a dark voice, “call me angel, one more time.”

Everyone held their breath as her words were hardly heard by anyone else. Even Pogo, who had just appeared from the living room off to the side and was watching curiously.

“You knew I wanted to come back,” he says carefully and tries to reach for her shaking hands by her sides, “you knew it would happen.”

She smacks his hand away from her, not wanting to feel the sparks she knew would still be there. It would only hurt her more. He was right. She knew it would happen. But she assumed it was some irrational fear that stemmed from everyone around her dying. Even though he had assured her that he loved her so many times. 

“And you told me, for years, that it wouldn’t. You’re a lying, manipulative, asshole that I can’t even get away from because you fucked up the entire life I had built!”  
“I didn’t make you come after me, Tori,” he snaps, guilt flooding his chest and the urge to hurt her as well taking over.

“And if I stayed, they would’ve thrown me in a cell and broke every bone I had until I told them everything about you.”

“That’s not my problem, is it?” Instant regret on his part and instant anger on hers.

The loud shattered of glass and a hissing followed his words. Everyone looked in the direction it had come from except for Five and Tori, who were glaring at each other like they could hear their thoughts. The window in the living room had combusted, now a bubbling melted mess on the carpet that would take a very confused carpet cleaner to get out.

“You’re right, Five,” she seethes, “it’s not your problem. I’m not your problem anymore, just like you’re not mine.”

She reached in the pocket of her jeans that were slightly too big on her, pulling out a fist and throwing whatever was in her hand at him. He jerks as it hits his cheek, his hand scrambling to catch the small object.

Her silver wedding band rested in his palm, and his heart dropped. 

“Don’t be dramatic, Tori,” he says as she steps away from him. He hated the distance she was putting between their bodies like she couldn’t get farther away if she tried.

“Pawn it, give it to someone else, I don’t give a shit. Consider this a divorce. I’m officially not your problem,” she turns to look at the crowd that had been watching like they were a soap opera.

His other siblings, his butler who had been more fatherly to him than his father. She hated that she knew so much about his life.

“Sorry about the window, Pogo,” she says with no explanation on how she knew him. She looks at his siblings, “nice meeting you, and I hope I don’t have to see you again.”

“Tori, stop it!” Five raised his voice for the first time since she had walked into the house, “let’s talk about this!”

She turned back around and walked past him, right back to the door she had come through only a few minutes ago. Five could be heard following her, saying her name repeatedly in what sounded to everyone else as annoyed. But she could hear the slight twinge of desperation that came through.

His legs suddenly stop moving and he would’ve tripped if he could’ve. Her hands dripped red energy and he knew she didn’t want to be followed. He groaned.

“Real mature!”

But the door had slammed shut already and the house was left in silence. When eyes followed her movements, everyone finally spotted Vanya. She had been standing by the door in dead silence and was now aware of all eyes on her. She gives an awkward smile and a small wave.

“I’m…” she points at the door with a thumb, “gotta talk to her.”

Five scrunches his eyebrow, “how do you even know her?”

Vanya waves him off, “it's a long story. But I’m going after her.”

She was standing on the porch in time to see Tori rounding the outside of the gate, arms wrapped around herself as she took large steps away from the house. Vanya, her new found friend, started to jog to catch up to her.

Tori hated people seeing her vulnerable. Especially right now, when it was clear that really no one could be trusted. But she couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. No matter how angry she was, she was equally as upset.

“Tori,” Vanya says as she comes to fall in step with her, “hey. Where are you going?”

The girl scoffs, shaking her head, “I have no idea,” she says honestly and stops her walking so she can stand in the chilly air a block away from her ex-husband and company. She glares at the sidewalk, her still overly warm hand pressing to her temple to try and ease the pain she was getting.

She had nowhere to go. The Commission was out for her, her entire family was either dead or a country away. And she couldn’t go back to them anyway since they think she’s dead and in her 30s.

“I have no idea,” she repeats with a pathetic laugh.

Vanya frowns and nods her head, “well you can go to my place,” she says, “for as long as you need to.”

“You don’t have to,” says Tori, “thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You don’t have to do anymore,” she turns to keep walking and find out a plan on her own when her hand is gently grabbed from her side.

“I know,” says Vanya, “but I want to.”

Tori looks back at her, eyes still stinging with tears, but now a small genuine smile dancing on her lips. She turns towards her friend and asks seriously, “why can’t your brother be at least a little bit like you?”

Vanya laughs and walks a few steps forward so she’s beside her. She lets go of her hand and opts to swing an arm over her shoulder instead. Tori doesn’t pull away, feeling the safest she’s felt since waking up in this strange new world.

“I have no idea,” Vanya says, “but I say we pick up some take-out and watch bad rom-coms all night. I think I still have some ice cream in the fridge from my last break-up.”


	9. EIGHT

It had been a long time since Tori’s last break up, and none of them had ever really hurt because she had been the one to call it off. But even though she did the same this time, this hurt a lot more than breaking up with Andy Warhol in 1940. Probably because she invested emotion into this failure of a marriage.

Still, she refused to sit around and cry about it. It wasn’t in her nature to mope over a boy who clearly didn’t care about her. 

Vanya had set up an array of DVD’s on the coffee table to choose from, most of which Tori had never seen, and she was pulling out a tub of mint chip ice cream from the freezer.

“Hope you like mint chip,” she says as she sits down on the couch beside Tori, “it’s the only kind I ever buy.”

Tori hums as Vanya holds out a spoon, “I’ve never had it,” she admits.

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Did you pick a movie?”

Tori looks back down at the line of DVD’s she had to choose from. Chick flicks had never been her thing, and she made that very clear when Vanya proposed a movie night. So she assumed that none of the movies in front of her were chick flicks.

Superbad, Step-brothers, Groundhog Day, and one more. It was in a plain black case like it had come from a video store and never been returned. Across the front was a white title.

“The Notebook,” she says, “I’ve never seen it.”

Vanya bites her lip, immediately knowing it was the kind of movie she said she wanted to steer clear from. But she also kind of wanted to see if there was a specific reason she steered away from them, so she nods.

“That’s my favorite,” she says deviously, “wanna wait until the food gets here or start now?”

“Let’s wait for the food, I’ve been craving pizza since about noon,” she lays back on the couch, avoiding rubbing her scar on the rough decorative pillow behind her. The jagged beads that were in a fancy V formation were harsh on the tender skin, she learned that the hard way.

Not even a full minute later is there a knock on the front door. Vanya jumps up before Tori even looks towards the door. She glances out the peephole out of habit and her hand freezes on the doorknob. She looks at Tori with wide eyes.

“You have to go to the bathroom,” she says in a whisper. Tori scrunches her eyebrows in confusion.  
“I just went pee, I’m fine.”

“No,” Vanya insists with demanding eyes, “you have to go to the bathroom.”

“Vanya! I know you’re in there.” Five’s voice is muffled through the door but still clearly him, Tori sighs, pushing herself up from the couch slowly and lazily. She rolls her eyes.

“Fine, I have to pee again,” she trudges towards the bathroom. The moment the door closes behind her, the front door loudly opens.

Tori sits on the edge of the tub for the second time that day, but this time in considerably less pain. She listens to what’s going on beyond the door, her heartbeat a little faster than it should be. Five could be heard walking into the apartment.

“Please, come in,” Vanya says sarcastically. Tori smirks.

Five wasted no time getting to the point, “where’s Tori?”

There was no way he came to grovel for forgiveness. That wasn’t in his nature. In the past, he never said he was sorry or asked her to forgive him. When he was in the wrong, and after the long road to getting him to realize it, he showed his feelings rather than spoke them. With her favorite candies and movies, or a surprise lunch date at her favorite restaurant in Brazil. But the words “I’m sorry” had never left his mouth in his 50 plus years of being alive.

“I don’t know,” says Vanya in irritation, “she ran off and I couldn’t catch up to her. How did you even find my address?”

Five’s voice raises in urgency, “we don’t have time for this, Vanya! I need to know where she is!”

“Well, you would know before I would. You married her.” The taunt could be heard even from a distance. Tori was suddenly very aware of the empty feeling on her ring finger.

She could’ve sold the ring for a ticket to Brazil. At least there she would feel more at home than this strange city full of ex-family-in-laws. So far, that was the biggest regret she had about how she handled the situation. 

“And I know she would go to the place that feels the most familiar,” Five reasons, talking very quickly and sounding almost out of breath, “she seemed pretty familiar with you at the house, so I’m guessing she’s somewhere in this apartment.”

His angry footsteps sound almost the same as they did walking around their own house. A little lighter because of his new 17-year-old self, but still heavy in the heel. She hears the bedroom door fling open as he goes looking for her.  
“Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean you can barge into my place whenever you want!” Vanya audibly follows him.

“Yes, it does!”

Getting tired of his tantrum, she opts to just face the music again. Telling him she wanted nothing to do with him, or just pushing him out the door and locking it. She takes a deep breath, preparing herself for the hurt that would settle in her chest when she saw him again.

She opens the door that came into the living room, turning to go towards the bedroom. She doesn’t get a few steps in before the smashing of glass catches everyone’s attention.

The big window in the living room was now covering the wooden floor. And a group of guys was standing in front of the couch, holding Commission-issued guns and wearing the same black field uniform that Tori had hated the look of. All of their guns trained on the first person they saw, Tori.

“Tori!” Vanya gasps when she sees her from the doorway of the bedroom. They were thankfully out of view of the only guy they sent after her, and she lifts her hand to tell her not to come closer. Five leaned around to catch sight of her and didn’t heed her warning.

He came running down the short hallway, still wearing his stupid Academy uniform, and threw his body directly in front of Tori. She glares at the back of his head in return.

The guy standing in the middle of the room had a mask covering his face. It looked like melted black plastic was poured over his head, and he was wearing a familiar black uniform. Tori had the same one hanging in her closet at home, only worn twice because of how uncomfortable it is. A field assassin only called on for highly classified missions. She didn’t think The Commission took Five’s betrayal so seriously.

“Tori Hargreeves.” One of the five men standing on the glass-covered carpet barks through the mask, “we’ve been sent to kill you.”

She didn’t want to give them the chance to tell her anything else. Of course The Handler would send a team of field agents after her. But did she think it would work? 

Footsteps were heard running down the short hall that led to the bedroom, but Tori didn’t bother looking to see who they belonged to. She reached for the fireplace mantel, where a few potted plants were sitting innocently. She grabbed the one closest to her, her fingers starting to drip red energy.

The potted plant glows the same shade of red that her eyes were, getting warmer and warmer by the nanosecond. The molecules were speeding up, becoming unstable and resembling a detonating bomb with no timer. She throws it in the direction of the team sent to kill her. 

It erupts in mid-air. Too small to do much damage or any harm, it could only serve as a good distraction. She used it as that

While the guys were frantically covering their eyes from the dirt and flames in the air, Tori runs at the one closest to her. He was caught off guard, not even having seen her move. She lands both hands on his shoulders, holding him steady and using him as an anchor so she can throw her weight over him. Her thighs land on his shoulders, and he stumbles back from his weight change. His gun can be heard clattering to the ground.

She wraps one arm around the back of his neck and slams her elbow into the back of his head. He stumbles backward, but she needed him to fall, so she clams it again with her full strength and one more time for good measure. He falls back onto his butt, her feet landing on the floor on either side of his head.

With her adrenaline still high, she turns to whoever was unfortunate enough to be next to her. She finally had an outlet for her anger, and she was going to take it dammit.

The guy was holding a gun at her, shaking like he was in a snowstorm. His mask did almost nothing to hide his fear. He clicks the trigger, but Tori didn’t flinch. Her eyes were still glowing red, the tint covering everything she saw in the literal sense.

She pushes the molecules of her own body as close together as they could get. It made her heavy, and unable to move. She was stuck standing in the middle of the floor, glaring at the guy. But the bullets he sent her way crumpled against her skin and fell to the floor like loose change.

He kept pulling the trigger even after it was empty, clicks getting lost in the noise of the apartment. He tossed the gun aside, reaching for the dagger that was strapped to his chest.

Tori looks down at the ruined clothes on her body, littered with bullet holes. Then she narrows her eyes and looks back up, “these weren’t my clothes to ruin.”

“Not the problem, Tori!” She can hear Five shouting behind her. 

Once she allows her molecules to return to normal, she runs towards the guy who shot at her. He raised his knife for a fight but didn’t put up a very good one. She slams a foot into his lower stomach as soon as she’s close enough. He grunts, buckling over into an L shape. She raises her other leg once she’s got her footing back and slams her knee into his nose. She can feel the bones cracking under the pressure.

The knife is released from his grip, falling towards the ground when he reaches for his face. But she grabs at it inches before it hits the ground, twisting it and diving it into the side of his neck. He hacks at the sudden loss of air, and she pulls it right back out. He falls forward, landing on his face as he struggles to breathe.

Moving onto the next, she notices that two others had been taken down; one guy laying on top of the small dining table, the other laying in the kitchen doorway. Only one more was standing, and he had Five pinned to the front door.

Five’s hands were tied behind his back, a gun pointed to his head and clearly tired. There wasn’t that many of them, she wonders why he was so tired from a few half-ass trained field operatives with guns. They’d fought much worse running much less.

“Am I always saving your ass?” She pounces on the guy’s back, wrapping her arms around his neck. She uses her feet to kick against the wall, forcing them both backward by multiple steps.

Once Five was free, he turned with sweat dripping from his forehead. Tori watches him pick up the gun dropped on the ground, and not hesitate to put a bullet in his head, execution-style. The stranger’s body goes limp in an instant, and Tori struggles to let go of him before he drags her down as well.

She scrambles away, breathing heavily. She suddenly understood why Five was much more tired than he would normally be.

They were 17 again, and they were both in very different shape at that age. He was malnourished and dehydrated, living in an apocalypse. She was in Brazil with barely enough to eat and more attitude than lung capacity. 

“Shit,” she pants, looking around at the mess they had made. Puddles of blood on the floor, a broken dining chair, a few licks of remaining flames on the carpet from the exploding cactus. Tori walks over to smother it out with her foot.

Five runs a hand over his face, his sign that he’s stressed out, “I was trying to tell you,” he pants, “while you were hiding from me like a kindergartener, we’ve got company.”

She glares at him, putting her hands on her hips and feeling the bullet holes covering her jacket and shirt, “I could’ve handled it, you didn’t have to come after me.”

Tori stumbles towards the couch, collapsing onto the side of the unscratched fabric. Her lungs burned, her muscles burned more. She missed already having all of that built up. She closes her eyes momentarily and opens them again when Five collapses onto the other side.

“Yeah, I did,” he says and leans his head back onto the couch.

It had grown dark out during their fight against The Commission. The only light inside came from the dim lamp that was still glowing on the table by the recliner. It illuminated Five’s exhausted features. 

Tori watches him for a moment. The man she fumbled into love with. She’s still surprised that he, at some point, had loved her back. She never got over that fact, even when they were celebrating their 20th anniversary together. That’s probably why it had been so easy for her to accept the fact that he didn’t love her anymore. Because she never accepted the fact that he did in the first place.

“What happened?!” Vanya comes storming from the bedroom when she realizes the coast is clear. She looks at the mess that had been made and the five bodies around the living room, “I’m never getting my deposit back!”

Tori sighs, realizing they would have to clean up. She looks over at Five, his eyes had opened and he was thinking the same thing. Tori decides to start simple, looking at the shattered giant window on the far wall of the area. Her vision tints red again, and the sound of tinkling glass echoes around the room.

The window shards pick themselves back up and fuse with the other pieces that were floating up towards the frame they were thrown from. They melted together and settled into a spotless window that let the natural light flood the room from the city outside. It was one mess out of many cleaned up.

“What happened out here?!” Vanya demands again. Five was already walking around, working on grabbing one of the many bodies they would have to clean up.

Tori pushes herself up from the couch to join in the cleanup, “Five brought his work home with him again.”


End file.
